490 PLYMOUTH SOCIETY. 



Professor Mapes says : — " During the last year we have ex- 

 amined more than one hundred soils, and no one case has 

 occurred where this amendment was not needed." He further 

 says, "that five hundred pounds of this super-phosphate of 

 lime, (at a cost of about $25,) has been found, by frequent 

 experiments, to be fully equal in value to twenty cords of well 

 rotted stable manure, whilst its cost is not so great as the cart- 

 ing of that eommodity two miles." 



This amendment is engaging the attention^ of agriculturists 

 both in Europe and America ; and in the State of New York 

 its effects are represented as wonderful, applied in moderate 

 quantities; their wheat crops having been more than doubled. 

 All soils are benefited by its application, but on sandy soils it 

 is said to be more permanently valuable than other manures^ 

 from the fact that it is not volatile, and remains in the soil 

 until consumed by the plants. Experiments on a small scale 

 might teijt its value on our soils ; caution, however, is neces- 

 sary in the adoption of any new theory, from hovrever high a 

 Bource it may emanate. 



We have the (lawn of a brighter day in the establishment 

 of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture. Much practical 

 info-'*niation will be diffused and sent broadcast through the 

 Commonwealth. Under its auspices it will be impossible that 

 ao"ricultural science shall remain stationary ; even onr " gravel 

 hills and sand banks " are yet destined to take no secondary 

 position among the more favored counties. 



The cause of agriculture is onward. The late lamented 

 Judge Buel said : — " A German, by means of study, and ob- 

 servation, aided by a long course of practical experience, in 

 husbandry, lias been able to ascertain the degree of exhaustion 

 in fertility which soils ordinarily undergo from the growth of 

 common grain crops, and how much the fertility is increased 

 by a given quantity of manure and by pasture, — and thus 

 teaching how to maintain or increase the fertility of the soil, 

 and consequently its products and profits from the resources 

 of the farm." 



In addition to what is now contemplated by said Board, 

 competent professors should be employed to make analyses of 

 soils, in order to ascertain what elements have been exhausted 

 by excessive cultivation, and prescribe the fertilizing agents 



